Praise for LBJ?

I feel a little bad that I have been bashing Hillary a lot lately. But it seems like I keep getting more reasons to. Most recently, she made the following comment, "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done."

There is so much that enrages me about this statement. First, it has long bothered me when people, usually presidential biographers but now Hillary too, give the credit for advances in the civil rights movement to Eisenhower, Kennedy, or Johnson. While it is true we should be thankful that they did the little things they did, the civil rights movement was achieved not because of them, but because of groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, NAACP, and Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, among others. Neither Johnson nor Kennedy were marching on Washington, working in the deep south for African-American voter registration, or boycotting buses and lunch counters that wouldn't serve blacks.

Furthermore, Johnson in particular got behind the movement when there was already the momentum for it. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act, arguably more important, was passed in 1965. This was nearly ten years after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, kicked off after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.

I know there are political science theories about "pressure cookers" and acting at just the right time, but personally, I think they are bunk. It is a way of celebrating someone who did nothing other than wait until there was popular support. Johnson may have worked hard in 1964 and 1965 for the bills to be passed, but the issue already had popular support - especially among northern whites who were outraged by footage of police attacking non-violent protesters in the south. He didn't use his position as Majority Leader of the Senate in the late 50's for these issues. Because of this, he doesn't deserve the credit for the Civil Rights Act.

This is about more than just one seemingly inappropriate comment though. I think it says something about the Clintons that they would celebrate Johnson's role in the Civil Rights movement. Bill Clinton, as president, seemed to rarely use his control over the agenda to promote big issues that didn't already have strong national support. Two major examples of this are Rwanda and the Balkans - and Somalia too for that matter (yes, it seems that I will never forgive President Clinton for his poor choices in the face of genocide). And Hillary has the same reputation. The point is, I don't want a leader who will be good at recognizing an issue whose time has come. I want a leader that will recognize something like civil rights and fight for it until others are on board. Hillary can't be that person if she is willing to make a comment like the one above.